In a 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project, 3rd generation partnership project) LTE (Long Term Evolution, long term evolution) system, an LTE Release 8 system (also called LTE REL-8) supports only several optional standard channel bandwidths which includes 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, and 20 MHz and are corresponding to transmission bandwidths 6 RBs, 15 RBs, 25 RBs, 50 RBs, 75 RBs, and 100 RBs (each RB is 180 KHz) respectively. With rapid development of a wireless service, a requirement imposed on a transmission speed becomes higher and higher. For example, a goal that a maximum transmission speed is 1 Gbit/s is set for the IMT-A (International Mobile Telecommunications System Advanced, international mobile telecommunications system advanced). In order to implement such a high transmission speed, people proposes that, in a version later than the LTE REL8, for example, in an LTE-A (LTE-Advanced, LTE-advanced) system, a larger transmission bandwidth is implemented through multi-carrier aggregation, that is to say, multiple continuous or non-continuous carriers with a bandwidth less than or equal to 20 MHz are aggregated together and used by one system at the same time.
In the LTE system, an RB (Resource Block, resource block) is a minimum resource allocation unit. Each RB includes one sub-frame in time and 12 sub-carriers in frequency. In each RB, an RS (Reference Signal, reference signal) signal used for channel estimation and measurement and data carrying data information can be transmitted. The RS can be classified into two types. One type is a CRS (Cell-specific RS, also called Common RS, common reference signal), where the CRS is transmitted in all non-MBSFN (Multicast Broadcast over a Single Frequency Network, multicast broadcast over a single frequency network) sub-frames and mainly used for channel estimation and measurement; and the other type is a DmRS (Demodulation RS, also called UE-Specific RS, specific reference signal), mainly used for channel estimation during beamforming. RSs are distributed in the RB as uniformly as possible in a certain manner. In the RB, each element capable of transmitting a signal is called an RE (Resource Element, resource element).
The inventors find that the prior art has at least the following disadvantages. In the LTE system, a guard band is reserved in an edge of a system bandwidth, and this frequency band is not used for transmitting a signal. Moreover, partial resources existing in a frequency band that does not satisfy a bandwidth standard are not used, thus decreasing a resource utilization rate.